Regarding philosophical importance, Edmund Husserl is arguably "the" German export of the early twentieth century. In the wake of the linguistic turn(s) of the humanities, however, his claim to return to the "Sachen selbst" became metonymic for the neglect of language in Western philosophy. This view has been particularly influential in post-structural literary theory, which has never ceased to attack the supposed "logophobie" of phenomenology. "Phenomenology to the Letter. Husserl and Literature" challenges this verdict regarding the poetological and logical implications of Husserl's work through a thorough re-examination of his writing in the context of literary theory, classical rhetoric, and modern art. At issue is an approach to phenomenology and literature that does not merely coordinate the two discourses but explores their mutual implication. Contributions to the volume attend to the interplay between phenomenology and literature (both fiction and poetry), experience and language, as well as images and embodiment. The volume is the first of its kind to chart a phenomenological approach to literature and literary approach to phenomenology. As such it stands poised to make a novel contribution to literary studies and philosophy.

• Contents
• Introduction
• I. Rhetoric and Thought: The Language of Phenomenology
• Husserl’s Image Worlds and the Language of Phenomenology
• Auch für Gott: Finitude, Phenomenology, and Anthropology
• “irgend etwas und irgend etwas”: Husserl’s Arithmetik and The Poetics of Epistemology
• Fort. The Germangled Words of Edmund Husserl and Walter Benjamin
• II. Phenomenology and Incommensurability: Beyond Experience
• Beyond Experience: Blanchot’s Challenge to Husserl’s Phenomenology of Time
• Absehen – Disregarding Literature (Husserl / Hofmannsthal / Benjamin)
• Drawing a Blank – Passive Voices in Beckett, Husserl, and the Stoics
• III. Phenomenology of the Image and the Text Corpus
• Charles Olson: Phenomenologist, Objectivist, Particularist
• Icon as Alter Ego? Husserl’s Fifth Cartesian Meditation and Icons of Mary in Chronicles of the Teutonic Order
• Absolute Gegebenheit: Image as Aesthetic Urphänomen in Husserl and Rilke
• IV. Fictional Truths: Phenomenology and Narrative
• The Virtuous Philosopher and the Chameleon Poet: Husserl and Hofmannsthal
• “A Now Not toto caelo a Not-Now”: The “Origin” of Difference in Husserl, from Number to Literature
• Gregor Samsa and the Problem of Intersubjectivity
• Notes on Contributors
• Index